August 22

1864, 16 European states adopted the First Geneva Convention, formally known as the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field . It covers the treatment of the wounded in the battlefield.

The convention was inspired by the experiences of a Swiss businessman, Henry Dunant, who witnessed the sufferings of 40,000 soldiers wounded during a bloody conflict in 1859 between French-Piedmontese and Austrian armies after the Battle of Solferino. There was no mechanism in place to arrange truces to retrieve the wounded, who were typically left to perish of their wounds or of thirst.

Dunant rallied nearby villagers to render what relief they could, insisting on impartiality between the sides. He later wrote a book, 'A Memory of Solferino,' that described the horrors he had seen and called for the establishment of civilian volunteer relief corps to care for the wounded in battle.

In 1863, the Geneva Society for Public Welfare took up his cause and created a committee of five, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross. On August 22, 1864, this committee brought together the representatives of 16 European states who adopted the first Geneva Convention. The conference also established the red cross on a white field (the reverse of the Swiss flag) as the protective emblem for those serving the wounded. (Courtesy of the Encyclopedia)

For more on the series of Geneva Conventions see on this blog below under Labels.

Hopeful...

Sometimes we get good news. Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court took further steps to rehabilitate the failures of the Bush Administration with respect to handling the detainees/enemy combatants in Guantanamo... Needless to say, these 'failures' amount to serious and systematic denigration of international humanitarian law. The decisions did not resolve everything and left certain things up in the air. For a synopsis of the two cases see here. But in light of the complexity of the legal issues involved and the political dynamic behind the scenes, this is an awesome move!

International Red Cross

On October 26, 1863 in Geneva the International Red Cross came into being. The centerpiece of international humanitarian law, it was concerned with regulating armed conflict and protecting people from barbarity in times of war. As Jean Pictet expressed it:

This leads to awareness that humanitarian principles are common to all human communities wherever they may be. When different customs, ethics and philosophies are gathered for comparison and when they are melted down, their particularities eliminated and only what is general extracted, one is left with a pure substance, which is the heritage of all mankind.

Geneva Conventions and Humanitarian Law...

While the concerns of humanitarian law are more limited than those of human rights law, they are nonetheless very important, since they impose rules of wars and aspire to limit barbarity in times of war. The centerpiece of humanitarian law is perhaps the series of Geneva Conventions that regulate various aspects of conducting wars. The first Geneva Convention in 1864 dealt exclusively with care for wounded soldiers. Later it was expanded and revised. In 1949 four Conventions were adopted:
1st-- on wounded soldiers on the battlefield
2nd-- wounded and shipwrecked at sea
3rd-- prisoners of war
4th-- civilians under enemy control

Furthermore, in 1977 2 Additional Protocols were added.
For our purposes, it is useful to read the provisions of the 3rd Convention carefully:

Art 13. Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.

Notably, Part III deals with the rules of captivity and internment of prisoners of war.

One of the most important issues in the US law recently was whether this treaty is self-executing or not. The crux of the matter is whether the enemy combatants in Guantanamo could avail themselves of the Geneva Convention without a legislation by Congress authorizing it. This of course has been a major issue in the US since the beginning of time. It always struggled in delineating the hieararchy of laws-- treaties with foreign nations or the US Constitution... The priority is given to the US Constitution and therefore, every time the US ratified treaties, it made several and well-known reservations (thereby limiting the scope of a treaty for its purposes)... This itself is a result of the distrust of international law in the US and unwillingness to enforce it in its affairs... But as we have seen, this unwillingness has made the US pay a heavy price in the world when it comes to the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo and the series of violations of the Geneva Conventions...